Faegis Project [FTJ Midrange]

Hi all, this is a deck that I made in response to the recent balance changes. With Fearless Crescendo and The Creation Project's cost increased by one, the aggressive version of this archetype no longer seems very appealing. This is my take on a more midrange version, trying to play slightly larger threats and then win via protecting Creation Project with face aegis or growing and protecting your board with Sword of Unity.

The first thing you will likely notice is that this deck is listed as having a fourth faction, Primal. It's actually still only playing three factions in terms of influence, but there's two copies of Mistveil Drake as a way to protect Project using the fate effect. Normally you wouldn't want to put uncastable cards in your deck just for their fate ability, but in this case face aegis is close to being worth a card if drawn with Dinosaur Nest or The Creation Project, because the opponent will not typically be able to afford leaving them unanswered. Additionally, with things like Auralian Merchant and Xultan Conclave, we can sometimes make use of the actual body itself (by marketing it away or gaining primal influence).
With that being said, it's still quite awkward to draw Mistveil Drake without any of these conditions being met, which is where Dragon Forge comes in. By playing four copies of Dragon Forge and only two of Mistveil Drake, we can lower the opportunity cost of running an uncastable fate card and only tutor for it when it's actually useful. We also get to have a bunch of 1-ofs that we can draw with forge in case mistveil is unneeded, which I'll go over now.

1x Vanquisher's Blade - This is mostly so that you can tutor for it against Katra, The First Seal decks (this only works if you went 1st), but it can sometimes be useful removal as well.
1x Sword of Unity - It's a very powerful midrange finisher that we'd normally play in the market, but because of Dragon Forge we can afford to move it to the maindeck instead. Because of the cost reduction, this also lets you cast it an entire turn sooner (turn 5), which can often matter a lot.
1x Stormhalt Plating - Another strong end game card that you can use to kill two units or deal 12 damage to the enemy player. You could also inscribe it if you need power, but I'd recommend avoiding this play unless you have nothing else to do since paying 3 to draw an Emerald Waystone is quite bad.
1x Rolant's Warblade - This is the most situational out of all of the 1-ofs, but with certain draws (mostly involving Dinosaur Nest) it can become extremely cheap. If you can play it for 5 or less power and kill at least one enemy unit I'd consider it worth drawing (so 4 units dying, plus 1 cost reduction from dragon forge), but if it kills more than one unit it's usually game winning. I'd also like to add that I've considered cutting this for a second Sword of Unity, so you could try that as well.

4x Kickflip Monk - This isn't a card you can draw with forge, but I wanted to talk about it anyway because I know that it might look out of place. With the recent balance changes, I'm expecting the meta to eventually go back to somewhat revolving around Katra, The First Seal decks. If Katra is successfully played to get back 2 power and gain 4 life, it becomes pretty hopeless for most decks to contend with it, so the incidental voidbound clause on Kickflip Monk can single-handedly save the game if drawn before turn 4, especially in conjunction with Stand Together. In other matchups it's either a Time Sigil or early blocker, so the drawback to having this insurance is pretty low.

At the time of posting this list, relic strategies aren't very popular (and so I'm only playing market Impound). I realize that by posting this I'm at least attempting to popularize a relic strategy though, so here are some options you could tech in if you want more equity in the mirror (or if you face a lot of other relic decks for whatever reason).

4x Dismantle - This card is great, and usually included in any time decks when relics are popular. I'm playing Kickflip Monk as part of my powerbase instead, but you could totally switch these two cards if you aren't facing a lot of Katra decks. It's also fine to just play this over anything you might be missing from this list if you want.
1x Stonesmelt Dragon - This is something I debated as a tutorable option with Dragon Forge, but FFF influence makes it somewhat difficult to cast. For what it's worth, in 6 powers you have an 83% chance of having the option to meet the requirements for this card. I think it's a reasonable choice if you find yourself needing more answers to relics, since 1-ofs are low cost to run, but it will definitely be a bit situational.


I think that's about all I wanted to talk about for this deck, feel free to leave a comment with any questions or feedback you have for me and I'll try to respond :) I hope you enjoy!